


Hauling Frozen Ropes (On Blessed Christmas Day)

by BannedBloodOranges



Category: Muppet Treasure Island (1996), Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Bitterness, Christmas fic, Christmas is a time of cold, Cooking, Family, Flashbacks, He's trying a little harder for Christmas tho, Implied Violence, Long John Silver is a bastard (but you already knew that), M/M, Memories, Modern AU, Multiple Perspectives, Regret, bittersweet fluff, gentle humour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 21:37:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16900260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BannedBloodOranges/pseuds/BannedBloodOranges
Summary: “Never ‘ad a white Christmas.” Silver had been quiet for the previous hour. He pulled a fresh cigarette and motioned to the lighter in the glove box. Jim lit Silver’s cigarette; one of their rituals. “Always wet in the West Country. Tried to make snowmen out of slush, we did.”For Jim, Christmas is a time for family. For Silver, it is a time for memory.





	Hauling Frozen Ropes (On Blessed Christmas Day)

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 6 of Gargoyles was a little dark, so I wanted to work on something for the season. This turned out more bittersweet fluff than I thought.
> 
> Characterisations and situations based on Muppet Treasure Island. Muppet characters are adapted into human roles, and play major parts, especially Garrett (Gonzo) and Richard (Rizzo.) This is for non-profit fun only.

 

 _And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me_  
_Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea_  
_And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way_  
_To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day_

 

Sting, _Christmas at Sea_

* * *

 

They took the M4 down to Bristol Harbour on the 23rd of December, despite the slice of sleet on the windows and the frost packed down on the flat fields. They were warm in Silver’s vintage car with the wood panelling and leather seats, the black disk of the small analogue clock counting down the hours spent in cigarette smoke and the fuzz of the radio.

They’d risen early and left London about midday. The three-hour journey was tiresome and already the frail light of the winter sun was dying. As they travelled into the West Country of Silver’s birth, Jim watched the roads become dry and clean and a frisson of snow began to fall, sparkling delicate on the surrounding farmland.

“Never ‘ad a white Christmas.” Silver had been quiet for the previous hour. He pulled a fresh cigarette and motioned to the lighter in the glove box. Jim lit Silver’s cigarette; one of their rituals. “Always wet in the West Country. Tried to make snowmen out of slush, we did.”

Jim smiled and laid against the headrest. He’d avoided sleep for the best part, although his heavy eyes were tempted.

“Do you always go and see your Ma?”

“Hm? Always,” Silver replied, turning the wheel onto a parting junction. He paused for a moment, then added; “Family is important, lad.”

Into Bristol, they drove, past the town centre decked with lights hanging from post to post, and the Clifton bridge, now sporting a second skin of white, undisturbed snow. Jim looked out the window, trying to form out of streets and shop signs the past childhood Silver had described so vividly.

“All gentrified now,” Silver chuckled through his cigarette. “Looks nothin’ like it used to. Used to be piss poor round this bit. Cost you a bob to squat in the backrooms. Now they charge you over a grand a month. Life’s a lark, ain’t it?”

Jim did not respond. He glanced at the cafes, the bistros, the independent stories with minimalistic decoration hung on bare wood trees. He felt suddenly homesick, for Garrett and Richard and the old fake tree with the Victorian baubles they broke every year, and he swallowed hard and looked down.

Onward they drove, until they reached the beach, lit with lights and noise and tall painted houses. They finally reached an unkempt part of the harbour, boats trussed up in the docks, shifting slow and silent on the black water. The fisherman sat in the dockside pub, wrapped keen in strongly knit jumpers and smoking heavy, old dogs lain over their feet. Boathouses, neglected with peeled paint and iron rust, were lined up with the fishing boats, and inside Jim could see the smudge of light through the square windows.

 The houses opposite were grey and narrow, apart from each other, and the street was cobbled and marred with portholes.

The car jolted to a halt. Silver took out his keys with a jangle, and slipped on his leather gloves, a glint in his eye.

They’d parked outside a house on the corner. It was a fisherman’s cottage, a box dwelling with a stout garden out front, rich with hellebores in pink and cream. (Garrett had said they were called winter roses. Jim couldn’t believe anything could flower in a wind so bitter.) There was a white gate, and a blue door, and a rusted weathervane in the shape of a ship.

Silver and Jim had barely made it to the gate before the door was open.

A spray of gold light frilled Ma Silver. She stood in thick stockings and floral prints, her hands sat on her fat hips. Her silver hair was hiked above her face of dropped jowls and caved cheeks, but her smile was wide and alive and identical to the one now shared with her son.

“Johnny!” Her accent was a warm shock in the frigid air. “That be my Johnny boy?”

“Hello, Ma.” Silver responded softly, gathering the little woman up in his arms, her hands craning around his shoulders. Jim hung back, awkward. She kissed his cheeks, adoring, before Silver stood back, letting her see him.

“Look at ye, all handsome.” She said, patting his coat. “Gold on his fingers and toes, have music whatever he goes, yes?”

“Heh.” Silver smiled, simple and easy, and kissed her forehead. “Brought somethin’ else back with me, Ma.”

“What be that?” She sprouted. Jim approached slowly to the side of Silver, revealing himself, and the old woman’s eyebrows darted to the ceiling. “My lord, Johnny. What a fine fellow ye have here.”

Jim wondered, for a moment, if she knew or not, and glanced sideways at Silver, who winked at him.

“I must say though, ye wicked lad…” She opened her arms toward Jim, the same spark of her son’s mischief in her eye. “Little young for an old badger like you, hm?”

Jim laughed. She joined him, a worn and welcome cackle, and hugged him hard.

“This be Mr Hawkins…” She whispered in her ear. “The only creature on this ol’ earth that’s made my John so daffy.”

* * *

 

_Hours Ago._

**The night before, Silver had a dream.**

**He didn’t dream often, not being the kind of fool that collected his regrets in the lockbox of his brain and had them flurry about like moths in the dark.**

**But when he dreamed, he was almost always a boy. It was always winter, cos winter was the hardest, with the wet mouth of a December storm and the waves curling like watercolours on a grey canvas sea. There would be black skies with a single star. He couldn’t feel the foot on his left leg because his big white toes would be poking through the wool sock, through the worn leather shoe, and his toes would detach like butterflies and flutter into the hanging mouth of an older boy.**

**The older boy would be Flint. Ugly bastard Flint, stood in the shallows up to his skinny ankles, the orange lighthouse beam sailing about him, catching stubble and acne and yellow teeth stuck in a rictus.**

**They would stand there as boys, and Silver would know the shadow of his older years was behind him, big and impassive and sturdy on his crutch. But in his dream Silver was the boy, poor as piss with a smart tongue caught behind vulnerable teeth. And Flint stood there like a leering monster, baseball bat in hand. Silver knew what was coming. His left foot was white and cold and numb, and Flint now carried a sledgehammer used for knocking down the bolts on the railway tracks.**

**Then the dream would shimmer, like a change of channel. It’ll be Christmas Eve and the pub would be swarming with people. He’s twenty-seven and sliding on the sea that has gushed over the wall and frozen into a treacherous tide of ice. He cursed his expensive shoes, the first pair he ever managed to scrape together and afford, as the soles had no grip.**

**Billy Bones will forever be waiting outside the pub, straggled brown hair under his cap, anxious about something he won’t speak of, and invites Silver around the back of the warehouses because the lads want a Christmas drink.**

**“Got some good spirit?” Dream Silver always said. The words were airless for there was no sound in his dream, but he heard it regardless and hated how stupid he was.**

**“Yes,” Billy** Bones’s **face always becomes Flint, his, Billy. His, Billy, Flint.**

**Snow fell from the sea upwards, rippling white foam toward the sky with the single star. This meant it was a dream, was the thought of Dream Silver.**

**He edged around the pub and left the single star, walking robotically to the warehouses far away from the light and noise, and Silver, at this point, always tells Dream Silver he is a damn fool who deserves all that is coming. The warehouses are pulled up like black taffy and stood in the impossible doorway; adult Flint. The sea was about his ankles and gold was on his face and hands, and in the dip between his throat and chin was a hole that penetrated to the back of his neck.**

Grey city light slatted the apartment curtains, the light navy of early morning. Silver reached for his cigarette and lighter on the bedside table. The scorch of flame and smoke filled his nostrils. He sunk onto the pillows, exhaling to the ceiling.

Curled away was Jim, his arm slung over his head. Light trod across the indentations of his chest and the fine rise of his hair, the chill pimpling the skin. His mouth was askew, gold hair a burn on the pillow.

Silver watched him, steadily, and smoked until the light crisped to later morning. The tinsel on their haphazard tree sparkled from the open lounge door.

Silver put out his third cigarette. The ash coiled from the spoilt end, upturned in the ashtray. He settled down into the sheets and with one arm pulled the sleeping Jim by his side.

The numbness in his left foot hadn’t left. Silver felt for it and found the stump and the empty space beneath it. He glanced, passingly, at his false limb propped by the cupboard.

“Jim.” He mouthed against the crown of Jim’s hair. “Time to wake up, lad.”

“Already?” was the sleepy reply, and Silver wondered how long the boy had been awake.

 

* * *

 

  _ **Now.**_

The front door had led straight into a lounge in 70s colours, a faded grey sofa lain over with woven blankets, a dated electric fire in the open grate. Fed from the narrow hallway was a kitchenette in beige and yellow, and a staircase that led to the upper floor. The mantelpiece was cluttered with pictures and seafaring kitsch.

Jim was sunk into the sofa, Silver beside him with his leg crossed, his arm relaxed around Jim’s shoulder. Ma Silver toddled in with hot tea and mince pies on a tray. Jim was up before she could take another step, and kindly removing the tray from her old hands, placed it on the coffee table.

“Oh my,” Ma Silver grinned. Like John, she had unnaturally white teeth. “What a gent ye have there, John.”

Silver laughed and tripped Jim back on the sofa.

“I be lucky, Ma.”

“How be the leg, son?” Ma Silver settled down on the armchair with a mince pie and tea. “That piece of chunk they call a leg, I trust it be well. Gawd, I hope it be well, knowin’ how much it cost, dearie me.”

Jim nibbled the crust of his pie and almost died. He could see where Silver had gotten his talent from.

“Fine as ever, Ma,” Silver said dismissively. “I swagger just fine, thank you, and granted if I wear long trousers, no-one be any the wiser.”

 

* * *

 

_Christmas Eve, a lifetime ago._

“Look at me, Pa!” Johnny scrambled up the side of his Dad’s ladder, his arms stretched up as far as they could go. Ice had frozen into a black gloss down the slope of the boating yard. Older boys had skated down it, bloodying their knees and pinking their skin in the frost. John had seen them do it, so he wanted to do it too.

The big shoulders had their back to him. The big fingers on the big hands knotted together the ropes as thick as chains. John’s little mouth twisted.

“Look at me, Pa!” He cried out. “Yer not lookin’!”

The shoulders turned, and John perked.

And he jumped, and skidded, and slit his knee. He didn’t cry, didn’t make a sound, but his Pa did, a great tearing bellow of terror, and gathered him up so quickly, like the boy be made of glass, and the big man wept small tears.

* * *

_**Now.**_  

The upstairs was bare too, a small bathroom and two bedrooms across from each other. The spare bedroom was black beamed and white-walled, and unlike the other rooms, had kept its visible age, even with the doylies on the bedside tables and windowsills. Downstairs was full of pictures, and their bedroom was no exception. The double bed was heavy oak and covered in brightly knitted blankets.

Silver unpacked the suitcase as Jim wandered about, picking up a ceramic poodle sat mournfully on the side and turning it over in his hands.

"Aye," It was an amazement how Silver knew what he was doing even with his back to him. "That's Lorelei. Always hated that fuckin' thing."

"The poodle?" Jim put it down gingerly. "Did this used to be your room, then?"

Silver cackled, lying out the presents on the bed.

"Why, he be so green." He flashed a bitter smile at Jim. "My folks couldn't afford this luxury, lad. I brought this house for Ma when I made good about twenty years ago. No, we made do in metal shacks outside the boating yards. Never paid our poll tax. Show you later if you like but I be damned if the local council ain't been at it."

"Should have known better." Jim sat at the end of the bed. He eyed the pictures assorted on the walls. Ma Silver, in a swimming costume, coming out of the sea. She'd been a beauty. "Your Mum is a spit of you, John."

"Maybe," Silver gruffed before he added slyly; "Don't look much like me old man, though."

* * *

 

_A Christmas Eve, long ago._

"Forget it, John." Jerry struggled to keep up with him. Silver could hear his old trainers skidding on the sleeted pavement. "It don't matter. They're all arseholes. We'll go someplace else, yeah?"

Silver kept walking, his fists balled in his pockets.

"Don't want to go anywhere else," he muttered, gruffly.

He'd finally stopped by the seawall, watching the drizzle pepper the grey sea. The tide was slowly coming in, licking over the black sand.

"C'mon, John..." Jerry never knew when to shut up. He'd known him since he was a tadpole in blue shorts, and still fourteen years later, he didn't know how to close his yap. "Did ya really think they would let us in? With us lookin' like seashore thugs?"

It was stupid. A waste of time. He shouldn't have bothered to cut his hair above his ears, worn a new shirt. Didn't matter how he did it, they could smell the shanty right off him. It hurt.

Seventeen years old he was now, the December moon grazing above them, all men with big feet and chest hair. And it hurt like fuck, a shameful prickling in his stomach, a dismay so huge it swelled ice cold in his chest. He could still feel the creak in his face where his smile had faded, how the snap of his silver tongue had turned to lead.

"Fuck 'im," Jerry was still there. Still talking. Always there, Silver knew, for he was smart and Jerry was loyal, and although Jerry was dim he wasn't dim enough to not see the potential in that. Jerry, his friend, was holding out his lighter. Silver received it, lighting his cigarette. "Bunch of wankers, anyway."

"Wankers," Silver finally replied, and Jerry relaxed at his voice. "Heh. Rich wankers. They run this town."

"Wankin'," Jerry sneered, puffing at his cigarette. He'd never got the technique right, chewing at the white end, fucking up the filter, inhaling so hard he made himself sick. "Well, it be the way it works." He tried to hide his cough behind his fist. "Fuckers have no Christmas charity, eh? What say we sneak back and torch their outside shed? Rumour has it that's where they keep their best stuff."

Silver blew smoke shapes into the moonlight. His coat was thin and ratty and did nothing for the cold. The cigarette, however, tended the fire in his belly.

"Fuck that."

Jerry blinked.

"What?"

"Fuck that," Silver said lowly, whistling the smoke between his teeth. He was smiling. His Ma always said he had a cheeky smile, lit brightly with ideas. "Fuck that bein' the way the world works, Jerry. Fuck that idea back to hell."

When he smiled like that, Jerry never could look straight at him. The boy had his hands in his pockets, nibbling his lip like a kid, even with the cigarette stuck out of his gob.

"So, eh..." Jerry shivered, rubbing his arms. Matchstick boys, the two of them. "You wanna do it then, or..."

"You want a Merry Christmas, Jerry?" Silver swung his arm around his shoulders, blowing smoke in his face.

"Yeah, sure."

"Why torch what be so valuable, Jerry?" Silver was smiling so hard his face hurt. Good. It distracted from the other hurt, which was becoming hot and volatile and crawling up into his eyes. No point in wondering if he looked scary. A glance at Jerry was enough to make his mate fall silent. "We're poor, we're skinny, we be of no consequence, yes? Well, who be noticin' the two young shadows sneaking in the back, takin' that all so precious booze? And then happenin' to make a sale down the road? It be only a Christmas miracle, truly."

John Silver didn't get hurt.

He got even.

 

* * *

  _ **Now.**_

 No expense had been spared for the Christmas dinner. Jim knew Silver had invited Jerry and his eighteenth girlfriend for the meal, alongside some of the closer faces Jim knew; Pea, Morgan, and their families. Richard and Garrett were coming down that morning by train and staying in the local hostel.

Jim spent the morning sorting out the table in the tiny dining room, trying to picture how everyone would fit, and searching for substitutes for chairs. He'd discovered an old piano stool, a pouffe, and was tugging an old deckchair he'd found behind the shed before Silver appeared, bloomed pink from the kitchen.

"There be my lad, workin' oh so hard!" he clapped his floured hands together. "Why, what a party planner. I can see all our revered guests be most comfortable."

"Shut it, you snarky git." Jim cleaned the spiders off the wood, ignoring the twinkle in Silver's eye. "Still got to set the table and everything and then figure how to get all the food on the table as well as the decorations and the sodding plates, and..."

"Oh lad," Silver ruffled Jim's hair in a way that was almost paternal, even if the look in his eye was anything but. "My, such stress. Maybe I could provide some relief..."

"I can smell burning," Jim announced deadpan before Silver swore and sped off back into the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

As typical of Silver, he was still in the kitchen, and as Jim assumed would be also typical of Ma Silver, so was she, and they were arguing.

Jim, his workmanship more or less completed, had taken the opportunity to sneak a plateful of Ma Silver's impossibly delicious mince pies and a beer, and was currently dozing through Alaister Sim as Scrooge.

It had taken him by surprise how easy the comfort had gotten to him. Initially, he had been awkward, but it seemed like Ma Silver had from her son that same ease of making you feel like family in five minutes.

The more he dwelled on the thought, the more curiosity got the better of him and shaking the sleep from his eyes, Jim rose and looked at the pictures across the mantel.

The most prominent was a picture that beheld the washed-out colours of the 70s. Ma Silver, curly dark hair cut short above her ears and unbelievably young, knelt beside a child with matching hair and a gapped grin so wide it almost took his cheeks with it. John, about six or seven, holding a crab in his little hands, in ripped shorts and barefooted.

Ma Silver's resemblance to John was uncanny, in her smile and cheek and strong-featured beauty.

Jim slowly drew his attention across each picture. Silver from baby to child to teenager, usually accompanied with his Ma or a gangly boy with a twisted grin and messy hair (Jerry, Jim reckoned.) In the background, there was only ever sea and sand and the far-off shapes of the boatyard. Always Silver, with the dark beginning to groom his smile and the glint of his mischief.

Right at the end, there was a picture so tiny Jim almost ignored it. At first, he thought it was a distant relative, a grandfather or an uncle. But it wasn't.

It was a man, swarthy in the skin, with his heavy black hair tied back in braids. He was smiling down at a sleeping baby cradled in his massive arm. Despite his size, he seemed to radiate a single gentleness, and his eyes, small and button like in his ham face, twinkled the light sea green of Silver's.

"Sweet one, he was." Jim jumped at Ma Silver's voice. He hadn't heard her enter, nor close the kitchen door softly behind her. "Died when ol' Johnny was eight summers. Got caught in a storm, never came back."

Silver had told him enough times, stories of his father, but never about his father. Jim knew Silver ironically doubted his patronage, but looking at the man, he could see the ghost of Silver in the burl of his arms, the long jaw, the full curve of his mouth.

"I'm sorry," Jim placed the picture back on the mantel. "It must have been hard."

"Hah!" Ma Silver waved her hand in a way startlingly like John. "Aye, what he would have wanted. Lived for the sea, did Irwin. Never loved anything as much as his boy, though."

Jim nodded, awkwardness reawakened as he took a seat. Ma Silver, arranging the pictures amongst the holly, spared him a grin as he tried to conceal the countless tin foil cups that once housed her infamous mince pies.

"Got a talent, I have, for bakin'." She sat down on her armchair, reaching for her knitting. (Jim had a suspicion what his present was going to be.) "But no match for me boy, Johnny. Why, what a gift he has, even if it does make him arrogant. Butter is better for spuds, say I, but he's addin' all garlic and rosemary and bakin' them in lard, and I'm sayin' they'll be too rich, what with the bloody big goose he's preparing, not accountin' for the bacon and chestnut stuffin' he's insisting on, and oh..." She shrugged. "I'm told "Ma, you be livin' in the poor past" and I suppose I still am."

"Sounds like him, Miss Silver."

It was her turn to guffaw.

"Miss Silver, bless me heart." She fixed him a look, almost flirtatious in its irony. "My lad, what a gent ye be. Too fine..." She paused and sucked her teeth. "No. My Johnny deserves all the fine things. But call me Miss Silver, oh no. Ye can call me Edie or Ma. But no such airs in this house. You be family, now." She looked at him for a long time and added softly; "I've not seen my Johnny so happy. He was a chirpy kid way back when. But beneath all his cheer, he's got this darkness, had it since Irwin went missin' beyond the shores, and I see it brew, sometimes, and I know how talented he be, and how bright he be..."

Her voice trailed off. Michael Horden moaned on the telly, rattling his chains high above his head.

Jim's smile faded.

"M-Edie...?" He asked gently.

"Oh!" She snapped back to life, a chuckle on her lips. "Pay no mind to this old bag. I waffle, lad. But what I mean to say is this, Jim..."

She leant over and touched his cheek.

"...never have I seen my John so happy, so light on his toes, and I think it be you, my dear."

At that moment, the door bumped open, and in waltzed Silver, wiping his hands on his apron.

"Jim, I need a young arm to knead our bread," He said briskly. "Be quick about it, and be sure not to tire the dough, else it'll be like tyre rubbers." He stopped, lifting his brows at Jim's burning face. "Ma, tell me ye not be showin' the lad my baby pictures."

"Nonsense," Ma Silver laid out her knitting on her lap. "Merely been discussing the weather like good Christians."

"Heh, I bet." Silver beckoned to Jim. "Up, up. Need labour."

"Yeah, yeah." Jim struggled to his feet. The beer was doing a double on him. "I'm up. Click your fingers next time, why don't you?"

Ma Silver laughed at them both, clicking her needles together.

 

* * *

 

Silver was washing his hands in the sink as Jim, finally, dried up the last plate and stored it away.

The goose was prepared, ready stuffed and nestled in a bed of garlic, onion and bacon. The stuffing, precooked, was left cooling on a tin. The berries for the pudding were soaking in brandy. And Silver, as if all the weight was gone from his shoulders, was singing old carols, high and bright, each one ruder then the last.

"Goddamn it, John," Jim burst out, finally, laughing through his flaming cheeks. "Must you? Jesus..."

 Silver, smelling like a pastry cookshop and sneaked brandy, wrapped his arms around Jim's waist and squeezed hard. Jim sighed, arching back to kiss him; Silver, suddenly passionate, yanked at his shirt.

"Easy!" Jim was backed against the surface top. "Your Mum is in the next room, Silver."

"Well, 'ave to be quiet, won't we?"

Jim sighed, shook his head, and hiding his wink, carefully slid his hand below Silver's belt.

It was a tease. Only a tease, mind you, but all the colour rose to Silver's face and with a delighted growl, he thrust Jim in the direction of the staircase.

Jim, hiding his laughter, attempted an appalled whisper.

"Your Mum, John...!"

"Ma..." John called out, giving Jim a hard push up the stairs. He stumbled, giggling. The heady smells of the kitchen and the beer and spirits swirled Christmas lights in his head. "Turn up the volume, will ya?"

Jim gawked at him like a fish.

There was a pause. Then a faint, bemused voice called;

"Right you are, love."

Alaister Sim's voice swelled considerably.

* * *

 

_December, Two Years Ago._

It was never a good idea to get drunk. Getting drunk meant getting stupid. Stupid meant vulnerable and vulnerable meant weakness, and well, Silver had no time for that. Even less for these Christmas parties, even if showin’ your mug at big gaudy dos had corporate currency. Something about social ladders, Silver was sure, as he eyed the ten footer tree that stuck out of the centre ballroom like a tacky green dagger of glitz.

The heat in the room was immense, what with the crush of people and the central heating lashing out enough temperature to dry out hell. He took a sharp sip of his brandy, running his tongue along his lip for the taste. 1932 by the maturation and they used a decent barrel timber to swish it in. Knowing the kind of fortune this lot made, well, they were cheapskates for booze. You could pick this up in the upmarket section of Tesco.

Over the side of the room was Smollett, toasting cheerful with a glittering Benjamina, every voluptuous sequin of her. Silver lit a cigarette below the _No Smoking_ sign. His presence was a sore spot in her eye, he was certain of it. She was making a great fuss of Smollett's mother, swooning over her sari. An easily impressed Aishwarya Smollett beamed at her son and squeezed his hand, while poor Abe Smollett - he had some pity for the wealthy git - twinkled at Mina with pedestals built in his pupils.

Silver, happy to always be a thorn in a domestic scene of bliss, arranged himself just so, the burning end of his cigarette just high enough to catch Mina's eye. Her skin doomed a greater shade of pink beneath her blusher, and she gracefully steered them away, snatching a bitter glare at him before she did so.

Heh. No use the ol' gal forgetting the salty shores she came from. Silver smirked through his smoke. Even with the festive jape, he was desperately bored. No faces here he knew, except the people who mistrusted him, and there was plenty enough of those.

A young man passed Smollett, shyly nodding at his parents and Mina, dragging Silver's gaze lazily back to the group. He was nothing spectacular from the back, just a burst of creamy hair cut below his neck, a little longer than Sammy Arrow would tolerate, surely. The boy turned his head to the side, and Silver saw he was fitfully young, a suitable guess of nineteen. His fringe was messy despite the kid's best effort in taming it, and stuck out in all directions. His profile revealed a strong jaw being slowly stripped of baby fat, a long nose with a snub at the end and a full upper lip, all damp and pink. A reasonable face, all things considered, if not for all the dreaming just hiding in the shade of it.

More so, the lad didn't move like the others. They strode upright in their linens and silks, diamond collars and cufflinks. The boy shuffled about, checking his shirt and tie, a self-conscious tick, looking over his shoulders, as if he couldn't quite believe he was there, and fretted with something around his neck, hidden to everyone but Silver's clever eye.

Hah. Who would have thought? A working-class lad, a lost lamb in this spiky circus of champagne and caviar.

The boy turned his head, smiling dutifully at something Smollett had said, and his eyes were bright, burning blue, wide and smart and naïve.

Silver tapped away his ashes, musing.  

He later found the young man on the patio out in the clean, cold air. He was looking up, toward the stars, and held open in his palm was a weighty compass.

"My, my lad..." Silver entered the balcony, the natural cool a relief from the inside heat. "I can say I was not expecting to see somethin' like that out here."

The boy steadfastly stuffed the compass back into his pocket.

"Now, now." Silver laughed and finally smiled. It was bolder then he wanted, but gentler than he expected. Heh. "Apologies, lad. I didn't mean to give you a fright."

The young man smiled tightly, and to anyone else, it would have been shy, but Silver could see the defence in his eyes, the hand hovered over his pocket.

"I don't think we've met, sir." The boy spoke carefully, a schooled politeness.

_Sir._

Silver cackled.

"Oh no lad, don't be callin' me sir, now." He tapped the end of his nose. "Never seen meself with that kind of title. Too uppity, if you ask me. I be John Silver, but you can call me Silver, or John if you prefer. Either side of my name be fine, but no sir here."

"Mr Silver?" There was a curious twitch in the boy's fingers. Silver grinned. _Ah yes, ye be told not to speak to me, haven't you, son?_ "My name is Jim Hawkins."

"John, if ye please." He responded shortly and held out his hand. "Let me have a look at it then, Mr Hawkins."

Jim - sturdy name, that - glanced at Silver's open palm, then back at his pocket, and back at Silver, chewing the inside of his cheek.

After a short pause, the compass was laid cautiously in Silver's palm. The warmth and weight alerted a nostalgia in Silver's skin, shivering back to a childhood memory, and Silver's lip twitched in a hint of a smile. The lid was plated silver, inscribed with the initials _L.H._ He clicked it open and observed the tiny arrow beating northward.

"Heirloom, it is?" He stated, conversational.

"My father's."

"He give it you, did he?"

"My mother did." The boy swallowed. "I inherited it after she passed away. My father died before I was born."

It was a frank statement, without pity. A painfully honest one and a foolish one as well, said with all the casual truth of the young.

"Hm." Silver closed the lid and handed it back. The boy took it hurriedly, although his blue eyes were round and fascinated, and Silver smiled again, a little more mysterious. "Seafaring man, was he?"

Jim brightened.

"Yes, he was," he replied earnestly before Arrow's warnings must have echoed in his pretty head, drawing in his confidence once again. It was as if somebody kept turning off a light. But Silver had heard of Hawkins, of Smollett's successful savvy ward, and this new information whirred quick and dangerous in his plotting mind.

"So was mine," Silver drew toward the balcony. He knew he didn't have to gesture the lad to follow; Jim was already shadowing him. Despite all the warnings, a little charm and common ground could work wonders. "I were eight when he died at sea. First mate on a voyage he was too, overseas fishin’. Seems like aeons ago, but I still remember his stories."

Jim Hawkins was looking toward the glass doors, at the festivities glowing gaudy in the ballroom, and then back at Silver standing below the stars, and Silver hid his smirk as Jim slid beside him.

"What kind of stories?"

 

* * *

_**Now.** _

Silver's cigarette smoke curled toward the ceiling, the late afternoon sunlight a hot gold in the room.

Jim dozed on Silver's chest, the scent of smoke and cooking and sweat a warm wrap around him. Silver took another inhale, stroking Jim's hair.

"You should get a tattoo, lad."

"Huh?" Jim's lashes fluttered. "Why?"

"Make ye look less pale."

"You've already pierced my ear," Jim murmured against his neck. "Now you want to illustrate me as well?"

The television droned on below.

"Maybe in the new year, hm?"

"Hmm..." Jim rose, hovering over Silver, who laid his head back against the pillow, relaxed, observing Jim with a silent smile. The star - Polaris - was tattooed on Silver's bicep, just above his heart, and Jim kissed the constellation, kissing until he reached Silver's chin, who sighed and smirked and flipped them.

The doorbell rang.

The television was switched off, and then there came a menagerie of voices, excited and rich (Garrett) and awkwardly polite (Richard.)

Jim was up in a moment, fishing his jeans from the floor, and remembered Silver, who ushered him to go on.

"Be down in a moment, lad," he said. "I'll clean up here. Need to reattach the limb. Bit of a bugger but you made it worth it."

 

* * *

 

Classic Garrett. He was already best friends with Ma Silver, chatting animatedly about the local ghost stories, tinsel bobbles in his dreadlocked hair and glitter swirled on his black cheeks, an oversized Star Wars Christmas jumper draped over red jeans.

Jim hopped down the stairs, buttoning up his jeans pronto, and upon spotting him, Garrett broke in a dazzling grin and embraced him strongly, nearly swinging him off his feet.

"Jim!" Garrett beamed, barely blinking at his nakedness. Richard was red beneath his duffel hood. "Merry Christmas, Jim!"

"Merry Christmas yourself!" Jim choked back, his heart hurt at the sight of them in the best way, and he buried his head in Garrett's shoulder, breathing in everything warm and family and _Garrett._

"Hey, Jim," Richard said wearily, poking his sandy head over Garrett's shoulder, a questionably awkward grin on his face. His nervous eyes darted up the stairs and back again. "Season’s greetings and all that. No, don't...you don't have to..."

Garrett and Jim's hands reeled him in for the inevitable hug.

 

* * *

 

The evening had them all comfortably cramped in the living room, the fibre light tree twinkling red and green beside the blow heater. Through the small square windows, snow had laden on the gravel path, and over the wall, the sea rushed wild in the white gales.

Silver - despite all his preparation for Christmas day - had managed to whip up a buffet of spiced beef, apple chutney, cheese and crackers. Richard overcame his awkwardness with his appetite, relaxing with the mass of beers and spirits and the indulgent company. Ma Silver told Garrett of the old stories, pirate bones buried beneath the sands. Silver balanced the chill with his humour, leaving them all in stitches.

Jim looked between his friends, the mother, and John - and realised, quite by accident, that they were his family, all found in half ways and about, as John would say.

By eleven, Richard and Garrett had left singing in a taxi, and Ma Silver had retired to her upstairs bedroom with her doylies and the radio. Silver sat and smoked as Jim cleaned up.

“Are you coming to bed?” He asked, placing the plates on the counter.

“In a moment.” Silver took his hand and kissed it. “You go upstairs now, lad. Busy day tomorrow, hm?”

* * *

 

_Christmas Eve. Not so long ago._

It didn’t do well to cheat Long John, not well at all. Least alone on Christmas Eve, when all his boys wanted was to escape the freezing air and go home to their families. A man knelt in the centre of them, dirty hair hanging past his ears and hiding his eyes. The darkness kept them hidden, but no-one would come to help anyway. The ice water seeped between the rotting boards of the pier. The boats, moored to the high posts at the end of the walkway, bobbed silently with gulls nested on the ropes with ragged white feathers all a ‘gleam in the black.

Long John wasn’t smiling now. Not with Billy Bones knelt at his single foot, trying hard not to gawk at the new prosthetic rubbing sore on Silver’s stump. It stank between them, the fume of the poisonous secret.

“Little hard to hobble on at first,” Silver didn’t have the patience to pretend to be aloof. “But I’ve gotten used to it. Just think, Bones. If not for you, I wouldn’t have had the pleasure to begin with.”

“Funny old world, that,” Bones murmured, but his fists were trembling, the skin across the knuckles all pink and chapped with cold, like a child's knees. They were all starting to look so old. “We were good friends in the beginning, weren’t we, John?”

“Aye.” Silver nodded. “Went to school with ye and everythin’. Used to watch you smoke plant behind the biking shed.”

Terror sagged beneath Billy’s eyes. He’d been running for a while. How ironic that they’d found him an hour ago, drowning himself in an old pub. Like Flint, he would drink his liver black. Swollen faced, hack coughed. Barely thirty-five, they all were, and old men too.

“Please, John.” His voice could have been lost on the vain whistle of the winter wind. Some part of John hoped it could have been. But he heard it, no doubt, the weak spit of it. “Please. I never meant no harm.”

Silver stood up straight. An ache swelled down to his phantom limb, to his phantom toes, all numb.

He snatched his crutch and pushed the handle of it into Billy’s thin, retching neck. Snow flitted past Billy’s trembling lip. The lights of the houses shone too far behind to reach them, and there was no moon, no spiteful pinches of stars.

The body hit the water, sliding heavy beneath the waves. Silver observed the ebb of sea scum trimming the rolling tides.

“Go home, lads.” He ordered. “Nothin’ more to see here.”

 They melted away in silence. Only Jerry waited, keeping his hands in his worn pockets, warm steam from his breath.

“It don’t mean nothin’, Silver,” He said quietly. “It don’t mean nothin’.”

 

* * *

  ** _Now._**

The low reverberations of midnight bells echoed in Jim’s dreams.

He spread his hands over the cool sheets, searching, and found it empty.

The open curtains leaked moonlight over the floorboards, the unoccupied blankets, the sad little porcelain dog. Jim swung out of bed and grabbed his day jacket and zipped it up under his chin. Through the window he could spied John, facing the sea with a cigarette lighting his eyes, steered onward toward the horizon.

Jim snuck downstairs, fitting his trainers on his bare feet. The cold wormed every crack in the old house. The wind blew and the timbers trembled with it. He was certain to close the door tight on the way out, to block out the bitter night.

* * *

 

The night air was bracing, biting. Jim hurried toward Silver, who even before he reached him, rolled his voice husked and strange on the wind.

“I’m a bad man, Jim.” Over the seawall, the gulls pecked at the mud worms. They clicked their beaks at each other, flapping their scarred wings. “That be the truth of it.”

Jim wrapped his jacket tight around himself, tucking his bare hands into his armpits. Fat snowflakes began to spit, whipping about like nervous flies. John was not looking at the sea, but the groups of hard men leaving the pubs, singing and swearing and spitting into the gutter.

“John…” Jim said, lowly. “I’m cold, John.”

A pause.

“Oh, my lad,” Silver turned to him. The breeze caught his dark curls, playing them across his cheek. “My lad, you be chilly, hm? No wonder, with a wimpy jacket like that. C’mere…” He opened his coat. “C’mere and get warm.”

Jim moved into his broad chest, into the opening of the slack wool coat, and Silver closed the lapels, protecting them both, as the snow began to swirl and pepper the air in white and grey. They stood there, heart to heart, Silver’s breath on Jim’s hair and his cheek on his brow. And Jim, Jim holding him tight as the sea moaned behind them like a bygone memory, the world freezing about them save for their bodies, closed secret and warm into each other, as the winter wind howled on.  

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year!


End file.
